Sugar interest group asks for flood protection

BATON ROUGE — A Thibodaux-based sugar cane trade group is asking the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to explore new avenues for protecting farmland from flooding.

Jeremy AlfordCapitol Correspondent

BATON ROUGE — A Thibodaux-based sugar cane trade group is asking the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to explore new avenues for protecting farmland from flooding.The request was brought about by the devastating flooding caused by hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike and Isaac, said Jim Simon, general manager of the American Sugar Cane League.At its meeting last month, the league's board of directors voted unanimously to encourage the corps to include in its planning the farmers who have suffered from abnormal field inundation in recent years. Incorporated in 1922, the American Sugar Cane League is a nonprofit organization with a focus on research, legislation, product promotion, education and public relations.Its latest resolution asks the corps to “give serious consideration to farmland when planning protection levees” and other related construction. Under federal law, the corps is charged with investigating, developing and maintaining the nation's water and related environmental resources. “Our resolution is very simple,” Simon said. “We are asking the corps to take agricultural farmland into account as they plan future flood mitigation projects in south Louisiana.”Simon said the league is chiefly pushing to protect Louisiana's 22-parish Sugar Belt, which produces more than 2.9 billion pounds of raw sugar on 408,000 acres. The area includes Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes and is home to more than 1 million residents, a number of which have seen their lives become intertwined in the sugar trade, dating back to its arrival in New Orleans via a group of Jesuit priests in 1751.Simon said recent hurricanes have flooded fields not traditionally affected by storm surge.Homes in agricultural communities such as LaPlace, Reserve, Lutcher and Gramercy that have never flooded were damaged by water from Isaac, Simon added. Just 17 days after the hurricane's landfall, Bush Grove Plantation off of La. 308 in Lafourche Parish was still dealing with flooded fields that were being prepared for planting. Herman Waguespack, an agronomist for the league, said in his report on the damage the farm problems persisted well beyond landfall because of all of the water that had to be pumped out and how it was “receding very, very slowly.” Dating further back, Hurricane Rita caused a storm surge in 2005 that flooded sugar cane fields as far north as Erath and Lake Charles.Flooding from storms is an unmistakable trend, Simon said, adding other business organizations, such as the River Region Chamber of Commerce, are making similar appeals. The River Region chamber represents business interests in St. Charles, St. John and St. James parishes.It has drafted the “Storm Defense Compact of Southeast Louisiana,” which asks the corps and the state to enter into “Katrina mode” and incentivize improvements made by local governments, residents and private industry. The compact also calls for: - ­The development of an updated storm modeling program with more accurate flood-risk projections by the National Weather Service.- A reevaluation of the state's flood prevention projects for evacuation routes and highways. - Forgiveness of the state's local match requirement for Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursements. - Increased state flood control funding dedicated to the construction of levees in unprotected areas.In East Carroll Parish, activists have been continuing efforts to upgrade a levee around key farmland for corn, soybeans and other crops. State lawmakers recently approved a bill that will allow farmers and landowners to pay for the $1.4 million project using a bond issue, a long-term borrowing scheme. Louisiana Farm Bureau President Ronnie Anderson said bulldozers and dump trucks might look out of place on such farmland, but they've become “as necessary as a combine” and are part of a larger trend that will continue to play out in the coming years.

Jeremy Alford can be reached at jeremy@jeremyalford.com.

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